Monday, December 29, 2014

Self-knowledge is one of the most fundamental keys for evolution and this course will help you understand yourself better. Not just the aspects of yourself that may be holding you back (weak traits), but also your developed ones (strong traits).

In many instances, we may know several of our strong traits well; yet evolutionarily speaking, we can find more efficient ways of using them, and find other strong traits within ourselves we didn't know existed, and which upon implementing, may become essential towards the accomplishment of our existential program.

The pace of our evolution and the depth of our self-knowledge can be processes we develop more and more over time. Thus, individuals who are seriously interested in their growth are able to recognize the benefits of refining more every time their self-understanding.

When a person thinks they already know everything there is to know about themselves, they may be creating a self-illusory trap which won't help them to further their growth more efficiently.

Thus, we invite you to come and find out more about yourself so as to improve the quality of your life as a consciousness; all in a in a very constructive and positive environment.

Using the Conscientiogram as the basis of our self-analysis, we will study ourselves in an objective manner; similarly how we might analyze ourselves when we are in our 'in-between life period' (intermissive period). The conclusions of this analysis at that moment become the basis for the evolutionary conclusions (goals, projects, lessons, experiences, and others) for planning our next life.

The Conscientiometry (measure of the consciousness) course will cover, among several other ideas, the following main topics:

Consciential guinea-pig technique

Proper and efficient use of the conscientiogram

Recognizing our strong and weak traits

Graphically identifying our main-weak trait and our main-strong trait

Techniques for us to understand ourselves at a deeper level, on an ongoing basis

Evaluating the performance of each one of our somas: physical, energetic, emotional and mental; and much more

Thursday, December 18, 2014

International Academy of Consciousness invites you to conference for scientists to meet and discuss a suitable post-materialistic science of consciousness in Portugal. Numerous areas of study will be represented from intuition and near-death experiences, to studies on the brain and measurable effects of the mind on physical systems.

(PRWEB) December 18, 2014

Modern day’s foremost researchers of post-materialistic consciousness science will convene at the International Academy of Consciousness’ (IAC) research campus, located near Évora, in the Alentejo region in Portugal, for the 1st International Congress of Conscientiology (consciousness science).

For over a century, maverick scientists have been venturing where only religion and philosophy dared; applying the principles of science along with new methodologies to the internal, subjective world of consciousness.

Consciousness is widely considered as one of the most remarkable and persistent mysteries of science. Why are we aware? Where does that awareness come from? Is it created by biology or is it more than biology, surviving physical death? The prevailing paradigm worldwide is a materialistic one that reduces life to an ephemeral result of the brain, which itself is an accident of genetic mutation. However, over a century of scientific advances like parapsychology, quantum physics and the public interest in near-death experience research (popularized in the 70’s by Raymond Moody, MD, author of Life after Life and recently rekindled by Eben Alexander, MD, author of Proof of Heaven), have demonstrated the inadequacies of this reductionist paradigm. Conscientiology, a non-reductionist science of consciousness, sees each of us as a conscious, evolving, intelligent life principle whose ‘internal world’ is as worthy of study as the ‘outer world’ focus of science to date.

Confirmed speakers include Brenda Dunne, former manager of the historic Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research laboratory and president of International Consciousness Research Laboratories (USA, co-author of Margins of Reality); NASA’s Tom Campbell, nuclear physicist (USA, author of My Big TOE); Massimiliano Sassoli de Bianchi, PhD (Switzerland, author of The Observer Effect: The Quantum Mystery Demystified), Ulisse di Copo, PhD and Antonella Vannini, PhD (Italy, authors of Syntropy: The Energy of Life), Chantal Toporow, PhD (USA, representative of the Society for Scientific Exploration), and Wagner Alegretti, Electrical Engineer (Brazil, senior researcher with the International Academy of Consciousness). The Swiss neuroscientist Olaf Blanke will represent the more conventional view, thus enriching the debate. Additional multidisciplinary speakers, who will be selected from over 50 entries from researchers worldwide, will represent a number of institutions and areas of study, from intuition and near-death experiences, to studies on the brain and measurable effects of the mind on physical systems.

Tuesday, December 2, 2014

Stream or download this Enlightened Life podcast interview by Chava Aima with IAC's Luis Minero on the OBE (astral projection, astral travel, out-of-body experience, projection of the consciousness). Minero is the current president of IAC and author of Demystifying the OBE.

Thursday, November 20, 2014

"When you have a lucid OBE you will inevitably notice that you are NOT your physical body. This realisation can break down the illusion of who you think you are - cultural background, profession, gender, and all factors of this life won’t be able to describe your essence. This knowledge also brings about a new school of thought – if we are not our physical bodies then we must be something else, something more. Having an OBE can produce a shift in thinking and a change in your principles and values from a materialistic point of view to a more all-embracing one. Having experienced astral travel first hand we can begin to see that our body is simply a tool we use to define who we are. We can begin to understand that the real essence of a person lies in their consciousness and the physical body is merely something to wrap it up in. With astral travel we can make the leap to understanding that while our physical body will die some day, our consciousness will survive.

Experiencing an OBE naturally leads us to lose our fear of death. During an OBE you may have an encounter with loved ones who have passed away. In your relaxed state this would not scare you or seem odd - everything occurs without drama or suffering, as the experience is permeated by a deeper understanding of our (and their) condition.Once the reality of the non-physical dimension of life is unveiled by personal experience, the person might spontaneously engage in a reprioritisation of life. Through OBE experiences you might have a greater understanding of what is truly relevant and what is nice or desirable but not really important. It’s certainly not uncommon for astral projectors (including those who have had near-death experiences) to become more ethical and start valuing time in a different way. Having a commitment to fulfill certain tasks is an inner feeling that many of us have. It may be translated as a feeling of having ‘something more’ to do in this life or that there is ‘something missing’ in our lives. However you choose to describe it the feeling is the same – the need to do more, be more, experience more.

For this reason the OBE can be a very useful tool for identifying our life purpose, the reason why we are here. The sort of OBE in which we gain information about our life purpose is commonly helped along by non-physical mentors or helpers. This is because they already know our life purpose. In some cases they may have even helped us plan, prior to our birth, a set of tasks that were challenging, but certainly doable. It is interesting to mention that, in the same way we may be assisted by a helper outside the body, we can also provide assistance to other consciousnesses that may be in distress or with lower lucidity than us. The assistance is normally done through our bioenergies which carry information about the consciousness’s ideas, thoughts, feelings and emotions. In other words, your bioenergies reflect everything that you intrinsically are."

"One of the most profound benefits is the loss of fear of death, common with near death experience. Fear is easy to manipulate and people that are afraid can be targets for malicious manipulation and influenced. Once we overcome that fear, we are able to make better and more rational decisions.

Attempting and having access to out of body experiences can set us on a journey of trying to understand this physical life. Because we have this glimpse into something unusual, a different world that most people are not aware of, we will come back with questions and a new perspective on life. We will be more curious and will want to share these realizations and experiences with others.

In other dimensions, just like in ours, thoughts and intentions have consequence, they attract things and people. This is sometimes called the law of attraction, and in the astral dimensions we are able to see this much easier and in a more immediate fashion. This is why it is so vital to monitor the quality of our thoughts, intentions.

As a result of out of body experiences, we become more perceptive, more psychic, and able to feel or see energy in ourselves and others. Because we realize the benefits of maintaining a healthy energetic pattern we become more aware of our own energetic and mental state.

We can step out of our physical and solid world and look out through another lens. By doing so, we can see ourselves and our lives from a different perspective and when we come back, our worldview is shifted and changed. The ramifications touch and inform all of our problems on earth. Many of the world’s problems come from the human-centered perspective that nature and life are things; they are to be used and then thrown away. When we see ourselves as consciousness that exists outside the physical body, this continuity and connection between ourselves, our bodies, spirits, and all living things becomes apparent. With this knowledge, life, the environment, and most other things in life become more valuable and precious.

Through out of body travels, we can see ourselves as a multi-dimensional consciousness in the process of evolution along with other beings. With this realization, we become more connected in a cosmic way to our fellow human beings."

"In our courses and conferences, one of the most common questions we get is on the topic of benefits of the out-of-body experiences. This experience, also known as astral projection, is very rich in terms of possibilities and benefits. For example, let us look at the most common cases:

Access to other planes of reality – The out-of-body experience permits one to reach other realities, or dimensions, beyond the physical plane. For example, we can go to the place where we used to live before entering into this present lifetime, and we can also see the place where we will go after the physical death.

Encounters with other persons who have passed away – Obviously, if it possible to visit these places, it is then also possible to meet and speak with persons whom have already passed away, including those who we knew in our life.

Direct interview with the extraphysical guide – These guides, also known as mentors, guardian angels, protectors, or simply helpers, are consciousnesses who live in the astral dimension, but accompany us with the goal of helping us. In general, the great majority of people today are not able to perceive the presence of these beings. If one leaves the body, one can see their helper and hold a discussion with him.

Understanding of and loss of fear of death - When we find ourselves lucid outside the body, we realize by ourselves, without any brain washing or mystic belief that death does not exist. Actually, outside the physical body, we will be exactly the same, with the same evolutionary level, except that we will not have the necessity to breathe, eat, etc. because these are functions exclusive to the physical, animal body. With the verifications made through personal experiences that death does not exist, one will completely lose their fear of death, since it will be proven that no one dies.

Assistance of other consciousnesses – With the knowledge and control acquired through out-of-body experiences (i.e. astral projection, astral travel), we learn to utilize our own energies in favor of other beings. This occurs through lucid and conscious transmission of therapeutic energies. This donation of energies can be made outside the body when one nears another with the intention of helping them.Recall of past lives – With the accumulation of astral projections, the person begins to have spontaneous, healthy recollections of past lives. This information can help us know ourselves better, overcome certain traumas, self-cure certain illnesses, and expand our sense of fraternity and universalism.

Increase of parapsychic abilities – The control and experience that comes from projections naturally expands the psychic capacities or personal extrasensory perceptions.

Identification of the purpose of one’s personal life – Discovering the main purpose of this life. Through a conscious projection, we can recall or identify our established mission for the current life.

Acceleration of maturity and awakening – With the knowledge of life gained through the study of astral dimensions, we increase our level of consciential maturity, also accelerating our spiritual evolution and avoiding the loss of one third of our life sleeping.

Energetic equilibrium and energetic defenses – The individual’s energy field is at its strongest when it is expanded and at equilibrium. With this, the consciousness is more liberated from intruders, obsessions, or energetic intrusions that are many times suffered due to the energetic invasions of other extraphysical consciousnesses. This state of equilibrium with one’s own energies produces many benefits in the physical and mental disposition and in the psychological equilibrium of persons.

The equilibrium of the energetic field is a characteristic of our overall well-being, control of negative stress, increase in self-confidence and emotional balance, amplification of intellectual capacities, and expansion of self-knowledge. One can learn to manage and control one’s own energies by applying different techniques and experiences."

Tuesday, November 18, 2014

NOW AVAILABLE: the long-awaited English-subtitle version of Nanci Trivellato's March 2011 interview by Tom Martins (Jundiai, Sao Paulo, Brazil) on the Vibrational State and the technique to produce the Vibrational State known as VELO. Nanci Trivellato, MSc. was awarded first prize in the 2010 “IAC Global Award for Scientific
Contribution to Conscientiology” for her article on the theme. In
this article, “Measurable Attributes of the Vibrational State
Technique”, which was published in 2008 in the Journal of Conscientiology No. 42, she proposed a more precise term and outlined more specific parameters for the application of VS induction: “Voluntary Energetic Longitudinal Oscillation
(VELO),” a key technique to produce the VS at will.

Friday, November 14, 2014

This Saturday at 4 to 7:30 PM EST in Miami (and live online), IAC visiting faculty Veronica Serrano (IAC Brazil) will discuss adolescence, as well as tools for both teenagers and their parents to develop greater coherence with their consciential identity and existential program (life mission), thereby increasing their probability of finding greater self-realization. Click here for more information and online registration.

Veronica Serrano on her upcoming course

Not only are the physical factors that affect this stage of life taken into consideration, but also multiexistential and multidimensional factors.

The course leads to meaningful self-reflection; not only for the adolescent, but also for the adults who live with consciousnesses of this age group, improving their interconsciential relationships.

Adults will also come to better understand their own reality, as they reflect upon the course of their own adolescence, gaining greater confidence as they prepare for the next steps in their lives.

If you consider that the search for eternal youth - also known as adultescence - is often a source of personal frustration, family problems, and loss of evolutionary opportunities, this is a worthwhile course for both adolescents and adults who want to become more efficient in their evolutionary process and reach their existential completism.

Verónica Serrano is working on her doctoral studies in Social Sciences at the University of Salamanca, where she completed her MA in Translation and Intercultural Mediation in 2013. She has also studied Marketing, Business Administration, NGO Management, and Psychology. She has taught at the IAC since 2001, and has given courses in Miami, Los Angeles, Mexico City, Lisbon, Porto, Madrid, Barcelona, Cali and several cities in Brazil, where she now lives. She teaches and lectures in English, Spanish, French and Portuguese. She has researched this topic since 2002, when her daughter, now a medical student, was a teenager.

Friday, October 31, 2014

When confronted with these facts and "para-facts" from their own experiences, individuals often develop a significantly different "story" or worldview than the one that prevails in societies throughout the world. Even though many believe in an afterlife, their behavior does not reflect that. Once we understand that birth and death are transitions akin to awakening and sleeping, part of a continual development, each presenting important opportunities for growth and assistance of fellow beings who are not as separate or different as they may seem.

We are lead more and more to a life of continual positive self-improvement, including ethics, inner balance and self-mastery; a life of increasingly selflessness and wide-reaching service, with a "long view" of all aspects of life. Death, then, does not provoke fear, anymore than sleep. We need not seek immortality: we are already immortal. However, our biological corpus and the current circumstances remain ephemeral and can be seized for furthering maturity and well-being of self and others: ever more complex, ordered and in tune with the laws of the cosmos. We discover there is no heaven or hell, only choices to make and repercussions to learn from in consciential evolution.

Fear is easy to manipulate and people that are afraid can be targets for malicious manipulation and influence. Free of this mother-of-all-fears, we are able to make better and more rational decisions. Attempting and having access to out of body experiences and other psi abilities can set us on a journey of trying to understand this life. We have this glimpse into something considered unusual, a different world that most people are not aware of, we will come back with questions and a new perspective on life. We will be more curious and the insights obtained can enrich all areas of human activity.

In other dimensions, just like in ours, thoughts and intentions have consequence, they attract things and people. This is sometimes called the law of attraction, and in the astral dimensions we are able to see this much easier and in a more immediate fashion. Soon, we realize how vital it is to promote the quality of and monitor changes in our thoughts, intentions, ethics, emotions, mood, the state of our body and chi. As we become more aware of our influence on others and ethical principles, we become more virtuous. We can become less an less vulnerable to undue external influence, as well, advancing toward a total, permanent imperturbability (intrusionlessness).

So, while not feared, death remains a sort of looming deadline, providing some positive incentive to examine the current opportunities this type of existence provides. It also invites us to think about what kind of intermissive period (between physical lives) and next physical life we might like to have and what we can do in this life before we reach that "finish line," perhaps with tremendous satisfaction for the inner growth, relationship, intellectual and altruistic achievements and challenges overcome, for the artifacts or systems of knowledge and assistance left behind, and the depth and number of lives touched in and out-of-body.

Such a worldview may take a long time to become widespread. However, more daring and lucid individuals can develop a more multidimensional self-awareness, which can turn them into the life-affirming, visionary, ethical, universalistic, courageous leaders we need today to overcome the crises underpinned by the outdated paradigms. Awakening to psi abilities is only the beginning. How might you apply your multi-level awareness? Which issues could you tackle? which area of knowledge will you advance? Have you planned something before you were even born? Your existential program can be as unique as you are. Here's to getting started, discovering it or taking it to the next level. Enjoy the challenge of Multidimensional Life and its gift of choice, of love, of beauty, of surprise, of challenge, of strangeness, of awe.

The Overview Effect is a related phenomenon that features a similar paradigm shift. Several astronauts describe their awe-inspiring, transformative exoplanetary experiences. As orbital tourism nears commercial feasibility, we can look forward to more and more people seeing the Earth as it is: a glistening blue, living space ship with a thin protective layer, without borders, but with more and more visible scars. It is no wonder that, as science educator Neil deGrasse Tyson often posits, the ecological and humanitarian movements (and interest in science and engineering) got a huge boost after the first images of Earth from outer space entered the global consciousness, collective unconscious, planetary holothosene, zeitgeist, morphic field, or information field.

The impact afforded by lucid projections of the consciousness or out-of-body experiences is at least as impactful. It is similar in the way that we see our "home" from the outside and have the chance to reconsider it. It also broadens our sense of universalism and triggers serious questioning of reality and our place in it. Both experiences bridge theory and visceral experience, as beautifully described in the aforementioned film. In other words, unlike the outdated view of the OBE as a dissociative or even narcissistic experience, it is quite the opposite. Both the "out of body" and "out of planet" experiences are profoundly integrative, expanding our sense of oneness with fellow beings, with the very fabric of multidimensional Reality.

The difference is that we tend to identify too much with this individual body and not enough with our life-sustaining planet. The projection shows us that while the fragile, mortal, breathing, walking, sleeping, hungry, hormonal, instinctual body is a precious vessel for us to evolve in this realm, it is certainly not the totality of who or what we are. In fact, we realize that we are much more vast and eternal than this useful scaffolding-meat suit: we are at least as cosmic as the physical cosmos that surrounds our Earth.

The emerging life-affirming, consciousness-centric paradigm sees consciousness as central to Reality. Consciousness, here, is used in its broadest sense, as a technical synonym for our essence, intelligence principle, Self, soul, or the bios in biology – the driving force of living beings itself; that which we are beyond the manifestations or vehicles of the consciousness like genetics, the brain, the body as a whole, or even the so-called chi, astral and mental/causal bodies that have been discussed for thousands of years: pre-historic shamans of animistic cultures, Vedic philosophers of ancient India, Judean mystics, Egyptian clerics, early Buddhist monks, all the way to contemporary leading-edge scientists starting in the 18th century with the likes of Emmanuel Swedenborg.

Based on more than speculation, this multidimensional and multiexistential view arises from actual experiences like the projection of the consciousness (astral projection), near-death experience, past life recall, clairvoyance, telepathy and mediumship which reveal that the consciousness is not limited to the material reality and that we oscillate between "physical" and "extraphysical" states: lives in a body (intraphysical period) and without one (extraphysical period or intermissive period).

For the majority of human history, we have considered the human spirit, soul, self, or mind a self-evident and fundamental part of Reality. The material realm was often regarded as less of a reality than consciousness, or at best an extension or reflection of it. With the progress of empirical science, however, a conflict developed between those those who dared question orthodox doctrines and the religious power that defended such dogma. A relative truce was achieved by establishing mutually-exclusive magisteria: the material realm could be investigated by the scientific spirit and matters of the spirit were to be left to the clergy.

Religious authority's censorship and abuse of power led scientists away from studying the nature of our internal reality, limiting to phenomena that can be physically posited, until subjective reality was all but rejected in a new kind of bias and censorship: an epistemological fundamentalism often referred to as scientism. Consciousness was increasingly considered an illusion, an imaginary ghost in the biological billiard ball machine, an epiphenomenon of the brain.

It is worth pointing out that many of the pioneers of quantum physics (as well as the likes of Newton, Descartes, Einstein) did not limit their world view to the observable physical world and were curious about the subjective realm. While great technological progress has been achieved through Newtonian-Cartesian material science, it's usefulness has deteriorated with the rise of quantum physics a century ago.

After a reductionist detour of about two centuries, the idea that consciousness is real, fundamental, and irreducible is resurgent. However, this time consciousness is returning to the center as a result of the application of the scientific spirit, including parapsychology and contemporary consciousness science, rather than religious thought. The current planetary crisis is further demonstrative of the inadequacy of the materialistic worldview as a paradigm upon which to build civilizations. Not only is the ailing materialistic paradigm challenged by the physics and consciousness research of the last century, materialism lacks internal, logical consistency as elucidated by idealism philosophers like Bernardo Kastrup. We can also look to remarks by speculative realism philosophers like Graham Harman on the folly of reductionist scientism:

"[T]here’s a more insidious form of human-centric ontology, as found in many version of scientism. On the one hand, scientism insists that human consciousness is nothing special, and should be naturalized just like everything else. On the other hand, it also wants to preserve knowledge as a special kind of relation to the world quite different from the relations that raindrops and lizards have to the world. Another of putting it… for all their gloating over the fact that people are pieces of matter just like everything else, they also want to claim that the very status of that utterance is somehow special. For them, raindrops know nothing and lizards know very little, and some humans are more knowledgeable than others. This is only possible because thought is given a unique ability to negate and transcend immediate experience, which inanimate matter is never allowed to do in such theories, of course. In short, for all its noir claims that the human doesn’t exist, it elevates the structure of human thought to the ontological pinnacle."

The curriculum of educational activities and the research programs at International Academy of Consciousness are based on a paradigm that recognizes consciousness as more than an ephemeral result of biological evolution, which is itself widely considered to be an accidental outcome of matter-energy. The Consciential Paradigm gives central stage to consciousness - after all, all we observe and experience is through and in consciousness. It does not dismiss the material reality and the biological systems. Rather, it contextualizes it in a more holistic, integrative, multi-level "outer" cosmos that extends from physical reality into other subtle aspects of reality experienced through chi, near-death experiences, out-of-body experiences, cosmic consciousness and more. The "outer" appears more and more like an extension of the "inner," each giving meaning to the other. Without the observing, participating consciousness, "outer" reality loses any meaning as reality outside of observation is not something we can ascertain. Without the "inner" reality, our microcosm and our shared experiences, a reductionist, mechanistic account of reality is clearly limited.

Though stubbornly holding on, reductionist materialism has been in decline for over a century. However, why is the pathological, destructive mono-materialist paradigm so persistent? Our senses give us a false sense of solidity of matter and hide the fact that it is only the tip of the iceberg of a spectrum of consciousness realities. However, as a result of transpersonal experiences, we become more perceptive and able to able to transcend the usual limits of human awareness, ethics and maturity.

We can step out of our physical and solid world and look out through another lens. By doing so, we can see ourselves and our lives from a different perspective and when we come back, our worldview is shifted and changed. As worldviews change, so do all disciplines and aspects of civilization, from art and architecture and to ethics and economics. The ramifications touch and inform all of our problems on earth. Many of the world’s problems come from the human-centered perspective that nature and life are things; they are to be used and then thrown away. When we see ourselves as consciousness that exists outside the physical body, this continuity and connection between ourselves, our bodies, spirits, and all living things becomes apparent.

With this knowledge, life, the environment, and most other things in life become more valuable and precious. Through extraordinary human experiences and related scientific evidence, we can see ourselves as a multi-dimensional consciousness in the process of evolution along with other beings. With this realization, we become more connected in a cosmic way to our fellow human beings and the priority becomes the well-being and development of individuals, communities, and the human family as a whole: human knowledge, abilities, intelligences, ethics, maturity, character, cooperation, and integral health.

Thursday, October 23, 2014

The International Academy of Consciousness (IAC) continues its educational outreach in Scandinavia, building new bridges, this time Norway's Wisdom of North program, which interviewed Demystifying the Out-of-Body Experience author and IAC president Luis Minero. IAC has done in-person activities in Helsinki and Stockholm in the past, as well as serving students from Scandinavia via online courses and those that have traveled to our IAC Campus in Portugal and other European centers such as IAC UK and IAC Germany. For a list of IAC locations and upcoming online courses, please visit our website, or let us know if you have a group and wish us to visit a new place. IAC has been to over 50 cities worldwide and we attend new locations every year.

Tuesday, October 7, 2014

Southampton University scientists led by Dr Sam Parnia have found more evidence that awareness can continue minutes after clinical death. Of 2060 cardiac arrest patients studied in 15 hospitals in the US, UK and Australia, 330 survived and 140 said they had experienced some kind of awareness while being resuscitated. 13 per cent said they had felt separated from their bodies and the same number said their sensed had been heightened. The results were published in the journal Resuscitation.

Thursday, October 2, 2014

Larry Dossey, Mario Beauregard, Gary Schwartz, Lisa Miller, Marilyn Schlitz, Rupert Sheldrake are among the co-authors of "Manifesto for a Post-Materialistic Science" published in the journal Explore and lauded in HuffPost. We highly recommend you read the two-page essay written by highly qualified scholars, scientists, and physicians who do not subscribe to the notion that all of reality can be reduced to materialistic laws of nature that ignore the inner world of consciousness, for instance. The HuffPost commentary will provide some insightful historical context as well. A similar "manifesto" was signed by 100 academics from around the world and published in the journal Frontiers in Human Neuroscience in January.

The curriculum of educational activities and the research programs at International Academy of Consciousness are based on a paradigm that recognizes consciousness as more than an ephemeral result of biological evolution, which is itself widely considered to be an accidental outcome of matter-energy. The Consciential Paradigm gives central stage to consciousness - after all, all we observe and experience is through and in consciousness. It does not dismiss the material reality and the biological systems. Rather, it contextualizes it in a more holistic, integrative, multi-level "outer" cosmos that extends from physical reality into other subtle aspects of reality experienced through chi, near-death experiences, out-of-body experiences, cosmic consciousness and more. The "outer" appears more an more like an extension of the "inner," each giving meaning to the other.

Without the observing, participating consciousness, "outer" reality loses any meaning as reality outside of observation is not something we can ascertain. Without the "inner" reality, our microcosm and our shared experiences, a reductionist, mechanistic account of reality is clearly limited: and while great technological progress has been achieved through it, it's usefulness has deteriorated with the rise of quantum physics a century ago. The current planetary crisis is further demonstrative of the inadequacy of the materialistic worldview as a paradigm upon which to build civilizations.

We leave you with an invitation to attend a meeting poised to shape the future of post-materialistic science: the 1st International Congress of Conscientiology (Consciousness Science) to be held at the IAC Campus in Portugal in May. Join luminaries of post-materialistic consciousness science such as Thomas Campbell (out-of-body experiencer and author My Big T.o.E. - Theory of Everything), Brenda Dunne, former manager of the historic Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research laboratory (co-author of classics like Margins of Reality), and quantum physicist and and consciousness scholar-experiencer Massimiliano Sassolli de Bianchi (author of numerous insightful papers and the book Observer Effect: The Quantum Mystery Demystified). The physicist suggests that reductionism may be outdated as even physics may be pointing to a "multi-material" physical world. Perhaps, non-reductionist science is a more accurate expression, in this case. In any case, the conference will count with the representatives from multiple organizations and viewpoints, including the presence of researchers identified with the prevailing or more conventional paradigm as well, such as internationally-renowned neuroscientist Olaf Blanke.

"The stuff of the universe is spirit-matter. No other substance but this could have produced the human molecule."- Teilhard de Chardin